


To Pluto's Moon

by theteaotter



Category: Coolgames Inc (Podcast), McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF, cgi - Fandom, shipboys - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-22 21:38:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11388939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theteaotter/pseuds/theteaotter
Summary: There he was, driving around California, because he had no idea where else to go.As he merged onto the interstate, he had the realization that for the first time in his life he was completely, utterly, alone.





	To Pluto's Moon

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, for looking over this for me carboysinc!! <3

Nick didn’t mean to listen in on Griffin’s quiet conversation drifting in from the kitchen area of the hotel room. That was perhaps a lie. Once his itunes faded into silence at the end of the playlist, his fingers remained immobile on the keyboard, refusing to click the next track. His web browser was open to his email account, blank as usual these days. He took one ear bud out and listened to the deep thrum of Griffin’s voice.

“It’s just not going to work out, and it’s not anything you did or anything,” He said. “It’s just--I’m pretty sure. No, you didn’t do anything wrong, please-”

Nick could hear the way his words desperately echoed from the hollow of his hand. He was probably scrubbing his eyes as he spoke.

“Yeah, I’m sure. I think I’ve known for a long time.”

Nick wrinkled his nose at Griffin’s rueful laugh. It was an ugly, depreciating sound, one that Nick’s heard too many times. 

“I love you, please don’t cry.”

Nick shoved his earbud back into his canal, and turned his music as loud as it would go. Clicking back over to his browser, an error code stared at him against a stark white background. 

He wondered where his girlfriend was.

\--

“I’m home!” Nick called. He padded into the kitchen, where he found her bent over some paperwork. Nick swallowed hard, trying to work out the sudden dryness in his throat. 

She stood up from the table and did not move toward him. “You’re back early,” she said, quiet and sad. “I thought I would have more time.”

“For what?” Nick croaked. He knew what his apartment lease on the table meant. He wanted her to say it though, he wanted it to hurt--he wanted to remember the watery sunlight catching on her hair. 

“You’ve changed Nick,” she said. “You’ve changed, and I’ve changed, and this just isn’t working anymore. I miss you like crazy when you’re gone, but when you come home,” she stopped, gazing steadily into Nick’s eyes. 

“I love you Nick, but is it love, or is it habit? Do I wait around an empty apartment for the rest of my life because I love you, or because I’m used to the idea of loving you?” She shook her head and looked back down to the floor.

Nick felt like every bone in his body had been sucked out. A numb, dead feeling settled cold and heavy in his stomach. His mouth started to run before his brain had time to think about what he was going to say. “Tell me. Please, please--just say it.”

She looked back up, a meniscus balanced delicately along her eyelashes, and whispered,  
“I don’t love you anymore.”

\--

There he was, driving around California, because he had no idea where else to go. He couldn’t go home, because it wasn’t the house where his mother raised him, and it sure as hell wasn’t the apartment. As he merged onto the interstate, he had the realization that for the first time in his life he was completely, utterly, alone. He left the radio off, listening to himself talk over the steady hum of pavement sliding by. 

Twenty-six hours and an empty fuel gauge later, Nick pulled up along the curb next to Griffin’s lawn. The house wasn’t big, but then again, Griffin wasn’t either. He just needed enough room to make as much noise as he wanted. 

It was white on the outside, with plain black shutters that didn’t actually serve a purpose, and a couple of overgrown hedges by the front door. Nick ground his teeth and gently tapped his forehead against the steering wheel. He really shouldn’t be surprised about where he ended up.

The open road tore his chest wide open, spilling tar and feathers all over the dash.

Inside of the cookie-cutter exterior was safety. Safety, comfort, warmth, and Griffin. Griffin, who smelled like home cooking, hard work, and Texan sunshine. Griffin, who somehow knew every single stupid, terrifying thought running through Nick’s head, and had specific smiles to answer them with. 

Griffin, who had his face smashed up against Nick’s passenger window; mouth blowing hard against the glass, spit dribbling out the sides, and rolling his eyes in big, round circles. 

Nick jumped, startled out of his heavy thoughts, and blinked dazedly at him. Griffin pulled back from the glass with a bright smile fluttering on his lips before it slid into his usual lopsided grin. He opened the door and plunked down next to Nick. “Hey,” he murmured, as the car shifted under his weight.

There was no reason to be quiet, but then again, Griffin was doing that thing where he just knew. He reached slowly across the center console and gently turned the ignition off. His fingertips traced down the edge of Nick’s arm, catching his skin here and there with his calluses. 

Landing on Nick’s hand, Griffin enveloped where he still gripped the parking gear. Their fingers laced together over the edge, and Nick released a long breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. 

“Hey,” Nick breathed and carded his fingers through the front of his hair, sweeping it away from his face. He made the mistake of glancing up at his rear-view mirror and saw how red his eyes were. He hadn’t even realized he’d been crying. They stood out against the dark smudges smeared under them, and for one masochistic second he thought they looked pretty. 

Griffin turned his hand over with a gentle nudge and entwined their fingers. “Want to come inside?” he asked.

Nick stared down at where their hands laid on his center console and wondered if it was possible to get out of the car without letting go of his hand. 

“Yeah,” he said. “Thanks.”

And Griffin just smiled.

That night, he didn’t unpack his inflatable mattress. Griffin had insisted that he needed a bed, even after Nick swore up and down that the couch would suit him just fine. 

Finally, he won the battle for the couch, but not until he was buried under five blankets, two sheets, and all the pillows from Griffin’s own bed. 

He frowned disapprovingly, remembering the cold nights in cramped hotel rooms, when they first started going to conventions together.

“Nesting,” Porter had called it. “He’s trying to take care of you.”

Nick remembered waking up to the sound of Griffin’s teeth chattering in the night, and figuring out exactly how to maneuver his body behind him. Bumpy, chilly vertebrae pressed and fit with the flat of his sternum. 

He was a little more plump off his mother’s cooking back then, and draped his soft limbs over where Griffin’s shirt was pulled too tight over his bones. In his sleep, Griffin relaxed against him; his shakes becoming tiny occasional vibrations instead of wracking shudders. 

That was the first time Nick slept next to any other boy besides his brothers.

Nick flicked on Griffin’s TV and grumbled a ‘goodnight’ when Griffin bent over and kissed the part in his hair. 

“Goodnight,” Griffin said, his face silhouetted by the television’s blue glow, and padded down the hallway to his own room.

Nick spent a few hours staring mindlessly at infomercials promising trinkets to make his life easier for the right price. By the time the cable box read five o’clock in the morning, he was desperate for sleep. He wanted his mom, he wanted his house, he wanted--he didn’t know what he wanted. 

He clicked the TV off and stared into the dark expanse of Griffin’s living room. With a huff, he gathered up Griffin’s pillows and one of his blankets, and trudged down the hallway to his room. Most of Griffin’s things were still scattered between his room and his office, like it always was at the end of a con. A small stack of them fell over when he cracked the door open.

“Griff?”

“Cmere bud,” he mumbled from his position, face-down on the bed.

Nick stumbled into the room and climbed in Griffin’s bed, nudging him over onto his side. Sliding down against his chest, Nick could feel his breath skimming hot and slow against Griffin’s bare skin.

Nick was still fully clothed in the things he was wearing when he first arrived that morning. He smelled like he’d been crying, all salty and stale, and he was gummy against the humid sheen on Griffin’s skin.  
Griffin slid his hand through Nick’s hair, and fitted his palm perfectly against his crown. Griffin brushed his mouth over Nick’s scalp, and Nick went lax and still, as if he was waiting patiently for something to happen. 

Griffin’s fan whirred and shook in the ceiling, trying to blow away some of the sweltering heat. Nick heard the air conditioner finally kick on, and sighed deep in his chest. He curved his body into the way Griffin’s slouched in relief. 

He dug his nose into Griffin’s sternum, and slightly; as if he was trying to keep from disturbing the molecules between them, and trembled. His choked whisper reflected off of the smooth surface of Griffin’s skin and touched his lips. 

“Can I stay with you?”

Griffin kissed the top of Nick’s head. His strands of hair fell away from Griffin’s lips and he mumbled, “As long as you’d like.” 

Warm water, too heavy be sweat, dripped down the curve of Nick’s nose onto Griffin’s chest.

Nick eventually tipped his head up and watched Griffin’s eye movements flicker under the bars of light stretching through the window. He curled his fingers around the sides Griffin’s ribcage and tucked his head down, drifting into an exhausted sleep.

The next day Nick blew up his air mattress, but kept it in Griffin’s room. Despite being a single size, it took up most of the other half of the space. Griffin didn’t mind. After the previous night, he was reluctant to let Nick out of his sight. 

Nick stood up from where he was tucking sheets under the corners and saw him smiling from around his mug of coffee, gesturing to another one on the nightstand. It was Griffin’s favorite mug-- the one covered in lace hearts and had “World’s Best Grandma” printed on the front.

He smiled back.

~*~

Nick spent a week of sleepless nights waiting for the sun to creep it’s way across the room. He would wait until Griffin’s breath evened out, and then turn over on his stomach and push his pillows into a big pile so he could see over the end of Griffin’s bed. Laying still in dappled streetlight, he watched the twitches and sighs skate over Griffin’s skin. 

Nick thought about string theory, and about how reality was just a big blanket of particles. He thought about how he was still touching him just by being near him. He thought about electricity, and the pulsing muscle in his chest pressed between his lungs. 

As dawn dip-dyed the sky rose and gold, Nick wondered how Griffin managed to stay asleep even though the sunbeam had crawled right across his eyes.

He wondered when he fell in love with his best friend.

 

~*~

 

The last days of summer passed in splashes of sea foam and sunshine down in Corpus Christi. Nick spent most of the time drenched in the teal and pink waters of late afternoon. After one particularly nasty wipe out, he recovered and swam to shore, where he spent a few moments pulling seaweed from his hair and laughing at Griffin toppling over the waves. 

As Griffin washed ashore, dragging his boogie board by his ankle strap, he put his hands on his knees and tried to catch his breath. Through the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide, he huffed out, “You look like a sea urchin.”

Nick laughed, collapsed in the sand, and watched the world go red from behind his eyelids. Griffin leaned over him. Cool, wet diamonds dripped from his nose and hair, and landed on Nick’s face.

“Are you happy Nick?”

He wrinkled his nose, and opened his eyes to the smattering of freckles across Griffin’s cheeks, dusted there by the sun. He traced the contrast between Griffin’s hair and the endless blue sky with his eyes.

“I’m working on it.”

\--

Autumn was starting to show herself off in delicate golden tinges. The nights were getting a little cooler, at least for Texas. Griffin had a fire going out back in a pit that he built with Nick during the summer. 

There were two chairs with a table between them. It was piled high with marshmallows, chocolate bars and Graham crackers. 

The stars were bright, and Nick could smell the leaves in the air. 

They laughed and talked and set marshmallows on fire. In the crackling remains of their evening, Nick realized what he’d been wanting.

Which is ridiculous, but honestly he knew it when he blinked up dazedly from his steering wheel so many months ago.

He knew it in every quirky smile, and whenever Griffin pushed his glasses up his nose. It was in every infectious laugh, and tired eye rub. It was every night spent laying on the couch staring at tv and thinking about his skin in the moonlight.

He knew it when he first met him, and he knew it now more than anything.

He wanted more, he could taste how much he wanted it. The words dangled precariously on the tip of his tongue.

“I love you,” Griffin said.

Nick fumbled and dropped his marshmallow in the fire.

Griffin laughed nervously and looked over at Nick.

“Uh, yeah,” he said. “I love you. Like, I want to kiss you. I get it if you want to go home in the morning, but at least let me drive--”

“Me too,” Nick interrupted. “No no no, me too.”

“What?”

“I love you too, Griff. Since before you met me. I guess since college? But I didn’t think--”

Griffin was out of his chair and kissing him. It tasted like sugar and a little salt and Griffin was kissing him.

The stars were hanging in Griffin’s hair like a crown, and the smell of wood-smoke was in the air as Nick drifted his gaze over Griffin’s lips and into eyes and thought: 

_'This is happiness.'_


End file.
